I can tell it's going to be difficult to write about Friday The 13th Part 3: 3D. It's a terrible film. The continuity, the acting, the gratuitous 3D effects... all huge impediments to being able to really get into this movie. However, it's an important entry in the franchise; this is where the Jason character we all know and love really started to come together. It could have been a much better film, though.
I did not see this movie in 3D until the Blu-Ray release several years ago. My first exposure to this film was on VHS video around 1986 or so, in its two dimensional format. Anyone who has watched a 3D film in 2D, knows the shots intended for the 3D effect are distracting and make you see just how gratuitous and gimmicky these scenes are. This film is no exception. For the most part, the shots that exploit the 3D gimmick are either pointless, poorly executed, or both. For every good 3D shot like one with a spear gun, there are at least three unnecessary shots of a stick pointed at the camera. Don't even talk to me about that ridiculous snake prop.
As bad as this movie is, it's necessary. This film turned Jason from a crazy hillbilly to a maniacal killer. This film gave Jason his trademark hockey mask. This film sort of set the standard for what Jason's face looked like. At the same time, however, this film also said to us that maybe continuity isn't something we're going to worry about too much in this franchise. So yeah, maybe this will be an easier article to write than I thought.
This installment got off to a bad start when they couldn't get Amy Steel, the actress who played Ginny in part two, to reprise her role. As the only survivor of the camp's encounter with Jason, she was to have learned self defense and then would have gone to find Jason and settle the score. I would have loved this. It would have made this a true sequel. It would have, maybe, been female-empowering. It would have, hopefully, kept more with the continuity established in the previous film. Perhaps it would have, possibly, given us a solid, satisfying conclusion to what would have been a trilogy.
Of course, that didn't happen. We don't get a sequel, we get an installment in the franchise. The empowered woman is sort of there, but the effect is lessened since this film's "final girl" is bouncing back from an encounter with Jason we only hear about in flashback. Continuity? Not this film's strong point. As for a conclusion, if you know anything about this series, you know how that went.
You may have noticed that my biggest peeve about this film, and the franchise as a whole, is the continuity. This is mostly centered around Jason himself, but the film has some issues too. I'm not concerned much with the small continuity errors contained within virtually any film, the ones that annoy me are the errors between installments.
In the last scenes of part two, Jason is taken down with a machete chop to the shoulder, unmasked and left for dead. Ginny and Paul go back to the camp and are reunited with a small dog. Jason then jumps through the window with the machete still embedded in his shoulder. Part three begins with that whole sequence but instead of the window scene, we get Jason removing the machete and crawling away. He never jumps through the window. We don't see only Ginny being taken away in an ambulance. Paul is now presumably still alive, the dog is presumably dead, and that scene is presumably a dream or hallucination. If that is the case, it does help solve another continuity error, that of Jason's appearance.
The previous film's "Feral Jason" is shown with long hair and a beard when he jumps through the window. This is pretty much how you imagine someone would look if they've been living in a shack in the woods all their life. Without any explanation, this film gives us a bald, beardless Jason. This is closer to the Jason we see drowning in flashbacks in the original Friday The 13th, but nothing like Jason in part two. If the window scene is a dream or something of that nature, then the long-haired, bearded Jason can be written off as just that. It doesn't explain why Ginny would imagine him looking like that after seeing his actual face, but it's at least plausible.
I had thought it possible that maybe when Jason got himself some new clothes to wear at the beginning of the film, that he gave himself a shave and a haircut in the guy's bathroom or something. However, the scene where Chris is telling the story of her encounter with some deformed man in the woods, the flashback shows Jason bald and beardless. Thus I have to stick with the dream theory.
On the subject of the change of clothes, Chris' flashback shows Jason wearing clothes very similar to those he took from the clothesline and not what he wore in part two. I don't really think this is much of an issue as Jason would have likely changed clothes periodically throughout his life. Some outfits will be similar to others, especially if he stole them from the same places.
I'm not sure how to explain the machete chop to the shoulder. We do see that clearly happen in the recap of part two, and it looks bad enough to prevent him from using that arm. I know Jason can take a beating, but this is basic anatomy; there are severed muscles here. All I can say is maybe it looked worse than it actually was.
Regardless of appearance, we get a slightly different Jason in this film. The crazy hillbilly who sneaks up and ambushes you has been replaced by a slower Jason who stalks you and is suddenly behind you. Perhaps his wounds have slowed him down, both physical and mental wounds. On top of his shoulder wound, he has a lot to process as his shack with the shrine to his mother is now crawling with cops. We do see more of the frantic, running Jason at the end, but that's Chris' hallucinations. Maybe that's how she remembers him from their first encounter, though, so there might be something to that theory.
One thing I can't figure out is why Chris would hallucinate Jason's re-capitated mother jumping out of the lake. I just regard that as someone thinking that would be a clever jump-scare, but it's not. It's suggesting something supernatural that doesn't need to be. It would have made more sense to hallucinate Jason grabbing her, but whatever.
So the film ends with Jason Voorhees apparently dead. At this point, he's the only character in this film I care about. I had no investment in any of the other characters at all, except maybe Harold at the beginning but they killed him off pretty quick. If the film would have been Ginny vs Jason, I would be rooting for Ginny. Here, I just want Jason to rid me of these poorly drawn characters portrayed by actors of questionable skill.
Apparently this was meant to be the last Jason film, but I guess they decided they weren't done milking it yet. It would have been a good stopping point, though. Jason was dead with an axe embedded in his skull. It would be revealed in the next installment, however, that much like a Norwegian Blue Parrot, he was just stunned. The final chapter awaits. A final chapter, anyway.